Bootloader?

tenchi86 · Dec 8, 2004

Ok I did a quick search bit the reasults seemed to be more towards one HDD. I want to make it so my old 40 gig seagate has linux and my 160 WD has windows. The versons will be winodws xp home and madrake for like 2 or 3 weeks the switch to gentoo. So can the boot.ini file handle this, if so how? If not whats a good program to where when I boot it gives me say 30 seconds to pick what os I want/ what HDD.

David · Dec 8, 2004

When you install Linux most distributions have an option to install a bootloader which is usually LILO or GRUB. This is capable of booting both Linux and Windows and gives you a menu when the PC starts so you can choose which OS to use.

Suicide Al · Dec 8, 2004

make sure you put the boot loader on the primary boot drive otherwise you won't see it until you switch to boot the drive with the linux boot loader on it. to do that you'll need a small partition on your primary to install the boot loader to.

MRD · Dec 8, 2004

boot.ini does not know how to load linux, so you need either lilo or grub. They can load windows through the chain loader.

Grub should handle this np. My boot sequence is way more complicated and grub is fine with it.

CrashOveride · Dec 8, 2004

And guides for exactly how to do it with grub can VERY easily be found via Google.

DreamingWolf · Dec 8, 2004

or one of these commands which will bring up tutorials within the terminal.

#man grub

or

#info grub

Using them I was able to get grub to boot my windows HD which is the slave on IDE2. (Something Windows HATES to do, it always wants to be the first partition on the first drive)

DWolf

MRD · Dec 8, 2004

Actually, only the win95/98/me series cares. The win 2k, nt, xp series doesn't care where you put it.

tenchi86 · Dec 8, 2004

Thats the first time ive heard you support Windows. Any way what size a partition we talking here? 5 mbs, 2 gbs? What excaly am I putting on it? Also I might install windows on the seagate to just like a 3-4 gb partition incase windows files get screwed up I like being able to go onto another HDD and replacing thoughs file. That should not effect linux right I just need to put it on a different partition?

MRD · Dec 8, 2004

I wouldn't call it supporting windows, it's just stating facts. =p

As for linux, it doesn't care what you do on other partitions. It only cares about its own partition, and that can be wherever.

tenchi86 · Dec 8, 2004

SO then the partition for the boot loader should be like 3 mbs?

MRD · Dec 8, 2004

The grub bootloader exists on the /boot partition, which is about 100 mb in my case. 3 mb is not enough for a linux /boot partition. The kernel lives there too.

tenchi86 · Dec 8, 2004

SO I have to install linux on the HD just to get the bootloader?

MRD · Dec 8, 2004

Well, you can install the boot loader on the mbr, but it still needs config files and such. I suppose you could probably install grub without linux... it might need it's own partition, but I really can't imagine why you would want to.

What exactly is the goal here?

tenchi86 · Dec 8, 2004

I want my WD HDD to be just for windows and as the master. I have a 40 gig seagate I want to put Linux on and put that HDD as the slave, yet I dont want to have to switch the shunt and cable settins around everytime I want to switch from linux ot windows. So basically as if I had one HDD with 2 partitions is what I want it to look like.

{PMS}fishy · Dec 8, 2004

tenchi86 said:
SO I have to install linux on the HD just to get the bootloader?

NO. You do need a /boot partion though. Id say a minium of 32mb if you plan on installing any kernels into it (thats where they normally end up, if you go with linux)

This has everything you need to know about grub.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/

MRD · Dec 8, 2004

Just install windows on the master and linux on the slave. Then install grub on the mbr of the master. The grub config files can reside on the slave without any issues. In fact, my grub files are on the slave as well.

tenchi86 · Dec 9, 2004

Ok well this weekend I will set all this up so thanks for your help.

DreamingWolf · Dec 9, 2004

MRD said:
Actually, only the win95/98/me series cares. The win 2k, nt, xp series doesn't care where you put it.

I might be wrong, but I think I have to disagree with you about XP. I run Gentoo and have grub as my bootloader. The HD is the master on IDE1. I disconnected that HD, hooked up a HD as slave on IDE2, set my bios to boot from it then loaded XP onto it. Everything was fine, even after I hooked the gentoo HD back up (forgot to change the BIOS back :beer:

) Then I changed the bios back, and edited .grub.conf to load XP from (hd1,0). It wouldn't load. It wasn't until I added the lines
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
that it would load. And those are the lines that trick XP into believing it's the primary disk in the scheme of things. Now I'll admit I'm no expert and that I could be missing some other factor that caused the problem, but when that solution works I have to believe that XP isn't happy unless it's on the primary disk.

If I am wrong could you PM me a link of where to go for further reading? Thanks.

DWolf

MRD · Dec 9, 2004

The problem isn't that windows insists on being on the primary master. The problem you encountered is that if you move windows to a new partition from the one you installed it on, it will be unhappy. Windows hard codes the partition it's on in the boot.ini file. Thus, if you just move the drive to a new place, the boot.ini will now point to the wrong partition, and you have to edit that. If you do, you'll be fine though. Also, if you just install windows on the first place to say, the 3rd partition on the 4th hard drive, it will be fine, it will set up the boot.ini with np.

DreamingWolf · Dec 9, 2004

Not true. I never moved windows from the partition where it was installed. MBR, boot.ini, and C:/ were all in the exact same place that I installed them. But when grub called to that MBR to load windows, it crashed.

Yet when grub calls to that MBR after using the 'map' command to make Win believe it's the primary, then it worked fine.

I got this information from the #info grub output and what they suggested worked on my system where basic grub hadn't.

DWolf

Bootloader?

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